Green Day Say They Didn’t Know About Acrobat’s Death Before Performing

Green Day say that they had no idea about the death of an acrobat that occurred before their performance until after they were done with their set. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong issued a statement on GreenDay.com after their set, addressing the death of Pedro Aunion Monroy which occurred before the band’s performance at the Mad Cool Music Festival in Madrid, Spain on Saturday.

In the statement, Armstrong said, “Many of you are wondering why we continued to play our show after the accident. Green Day did not hear about the accident until after our show was over. We didn’t even know there was an acrobat performance at all. these festivals are huge. There are so many things happening at the same time it’s impossible to keep up with every performer/artist.”

He added, “We were in a back stage compound about a half mile away from the main festival stage. We were warming up ready to go at 11:25 pm. 15 minutes prior our tour management was told by local authorities to wait to go on stage because there was some sort of security issue. Security issues are a normal occurrence and procedure at any show.. we were NOT told why which is also normal. we waited as we were instructed. Still, We had no clue there was any such accident. We were given the ok. The band jumped into vans and drove to the main festival stage. This was to be the last show of our European tour and we were all so excited to play our hearts out one last time.”

Armstrong extended his condolences to Monroy’s family, saying, “This has never happened in the 30 years Green Day have been performing live. If we had known prior to our performance we most likely would not have played at all. We are not heartless people. The safety and well being at any of our concerts absolutely comes first. What happened to Pedro is unthinkable. Once again we are heartbroken for his friends and family.”

TMZ reports that the festival organizers said they didn’t cancel the show because they were following orders from state and local security forces who felt a cancellation could cause a security issue, as some of the 45,000 attendees may have reacted violently.